Were COVID Briefings a Boldstroke or a Blunder? Only Time Will Tell

It has been damned if he doesn't and damned if he does for President Trump since day one. And the apparent end of his regular Covid-19 briefings offers another good case in point.

The briefings probably were necessary in order to reassure a rattled nation. But they were also politically risky, given the President's unfortunate tendency toward logorrhea, combined with a gotcha media looking for reasons to make him look bad, which he routinely serves up on a platter. The risks were multiplied five-fold in an election year, when presidents typically become extremely risk-averse. Circumstances would have argued for very controlled and closely managed briefings, at which the President said little -- serving largely as a tone- and theme-setting MC -- leaving the Veep and assembled experts to take lead on the pitfall-prone complexities.

In terms of their overall impact, political and psychological, I think the briefings should be judged a success, despite the flaps they were almost certain to generate. His advisors probably would have preferred a much more controlled and cautious approach. The briefings could have been scheduled less regularly and more formally formatted, lowering the chance for gaffes. But Trump, in typical fashion, let it all hang out and made himself the star of every show. It's too soon to tell whether that was a bold stroke or a blunder. But the briefings are sure to loom large as a pivot point when histories of this campaign season are written. 

The briefings should have been, well, briefer, with far less spontaneity and give-and-take with the press. That would have been the conventional advice most communications pros would have given any conventional president under such circumstances. But Trump has without question been the most unconventional and unscripted President of the modern era, for good or ill. He's obviously oblivious to such guidance and won't or can't be managed, which one might count as a virtue or vice depending on your take on Trump.

Now that he's feeling burned and reportedly dialing back these events, appropriately in my view, the dominant media narrative will change. The "story" will become his alleged lack of engagement, transparency, compassion, courage, accountability, bitterness toward the press, whatever. He'll be caricatured by some (absurdly, in my view) as the bumbler who urged Americans to chug Lysol. The media got two or three good "gotchas" out of the deal, and Trump had a way to connect with Americans very directly, which may or may not have worked in his favor, despite a few missteps.

Now this interesting (and sometimes entertaining) experiment in spontaneous, freewheeling, shoot-from-the-lip presidential leadership must end, potentially to the detriment of everyday Americans, due to a supercharged media environment in which no quarter is given on either side. That's unfortunate, in my opinion. It's rare that a President and the White House press corps can let "it all hang out," so to speak. The immediacy of live events and lack of scripting gave viewers a fascinating opportunity to see the President and press at work, in the raw. 

Some days the President came off looking better than the press, from my perspective; some days I came away with the opposite impression. The lively and unfiltered (and sometimes petty) sparring left it for viewers to decide who was behaving appropriately. Such freewheeling interactions, on such a regular basis, are rare to see in these times. And we'll be unlikely to see them again, I'm betting, even if Trump wins a second term.

People often ask why today's politicians, particularly Presidents, are so carefully scripted and managed. Well, this is why today's politicians, particularly our Presidents, are so carefully scripted and managed.

Uncounted Casualties

Some of the bobble-chasers are breathlessly previewing the Grand Reopening on Colorado's horizon. I fear it will be too timid and come too late to avert more unacceptable losses, of businesses as well as people.

These will be baby steps, we're cautioned; it's not going to be a "free for all," in the governor's words. The restive and the rebellious need to just relax, hang on a little longer, sacrifice more, see that  there's light at the end of the tunnel, and keep "doing our part." Grab on to this glimmer of hope and be grateful for Jared's mercy: that's the tenor and tone the Governor and Democrats want set. And so far it seems to be working for them.

Well, sorry if I'm not so eagerly chasing this bobble.

I'm pleased things are moving fitfully toward a "reopening." I think the Governor sincerely understands the urgency of getting Colorado moving again, if for no other reason than to stanch the budget bleed-out. But the celebration and optimism should be muted, and just as cautious as the "reopening" itself, tempered by the reality that this will be too little too late for many businesses and the multitude of workers they employed. Many of those businesses are closed, done, shuttered, finito, kaput. Each is someone's dead dream. And nothing the state or federal government can do now will bring them back. 

Were the sacrifices warranted in the name of saving lives? That will be debated for a hundred years. Right now we're like London, 1941, during a lull in the blitz, crawling from our hiding holes to see what's still standing, and what's barely standing but won't be for long. The final outcome can't now be known. Most are too shell-shocked or hunkered-down to focus on much more than their immediate survival. 

Bastiat famously wrote about what is seen and what is not seen. The economically astute person pays as much attention to the latter as the former. The bobble-chasers see what the bobble-danglers want them to see. They are patiently awaiting word from The Authorities on what comes next. But let's consider the unseen for a second.

Is the mayor of Denver keeping tabs on how many businesses there already closed for good and won't reopen at all? Does Colorado's Governor keep such a list? They know the human mortality stats back and forth (and sometimes sideways), which is understandable, but what about the business mortality stats? Even Paul Krugman could foresee a precipitous plunge in tax revenue, with potentially profound budget implications. But that doesn't begin to measure the psychological and social impacts on those who lose businesses and jobs, not because of the virus but because of a panicked political reaction that was disproportionate to the danger.     

Yes, we're talking now about gradually reopening some businesses, but with conditions and caveats that might make reopening beside the point, if profitability can't be achieved. But how many Colorado businesses already went off the cliff? How many can't be pulled back from the brink by a gradual reopening and hit-and-miss "assistance" from Uncle Sam? 

No one knows. These casualties of the lockdown are real but also conveniently invisible, because no one is tracking them. They don't get a spotlight in the Governor's regular Royal Edicts and Proclamations Period. Their passing from the scene is largely unnoticed and unmourned, except for the loyal or occasional patrons who lost a favorite haunt or were left in the lurch.   

And why is no one in power tracking the economic casualties as diligently as they track the human casualties? Because they want the economic casualties quietly buried in an unmarked grave, where they're out of sight and out of mind. That way fewer question get asked about whether the "cure" they prescribed in a panic inadvertently killed the patient.

Hyperventilation Nation

I didn't know until yesterday, when I heard it from Andrew Cuomo's lips, that 80% of the patients put on ventilators never recover, which means ventilators really aren't the "life-saving" miracle machines we often read about in recent headlines. That seems to be on the high (meaning pessimistic) side of the percentages I've seen reported, but it's fair to say that patients have a pretty low probability of ever getting off a ventilator once they're on one. 

The machines can be helpful in prolonging life, in other words, giving some percentage of users a fighting chance, but most of the people who use one won't make it. How much more life these machines buy for patients -- how many more days or hours, on average -- I do not know. I'm sure those statistics exist somewhere. But all most of these machines are good for is delaying the inevitable and prolonging suffering for the doomed. Do ventilators lower the overall mortality rate? Not by very much, relative to all the focus they receive. I've also seen reports that ventilators sometimes can do more harm than good; that they themselves can be a conduit for infections that kill; that they may have been OVERUSED as a treatment for COVID19.

None of this argues for not using ventilators in situations where they're helpful, or for withholding this technology from lost causes and just writing them off. But it does point to a disconnect between public perceptions about ventilators and their real-world medical utility in the midst of this crisis. And that misperception could have repercussions, depending on how the politics of this play out.   

So . . . did I have a point? My point, I suppose, or my question, is why all the obsessive focus on ventilators for the past three or four weeks, given that the projected "shortage" was based on bogus models and they have a marginal medical benefit to begin with? Now, just as the curve is being flattened, states that only a few weeks ago were making a federal case out of the lack of ventilators -- like New York -- have MORE than they need and are shipping them out to other hotspots, which will themselves be cooling off by the time the machines arrive.

So were ventilators ever really the issue -- or were they weaponized to advance partisan political agendas that had nothing to do with saving lives? And will the weaponization of ventilators end here? I doubt it. Democrats will next be making a scandal out of what we paid for this tidal wave of surplus ventilators, even as the need for them steeply declined and their utility as "life-savers" came into question. They'll then begin blaming Trump for browbeating companies into overproducing them, after having blamed Trump for the alleged ventilator shortage.

No matter where the Coronavirus crisis takes us from here, "Ventilatorgate" already has proven, once and for all, that this country is certifiable insane. Let's do what we can to fix the bodies. That's the top priority. But what we can do to fix our sick and broken "body politic" is a much more daunting question.

Has the 'Tip of the Spear' Lost its Edge?

What would Chester Nimitz do?

What would "Bull" Halsey say?

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, and I of course applaud anyone who has or does serve in uniform, and yes I'm just a civilian who never served so I should probably just zip my lip, but am I wrong to see this USS Theodore Roosevelt fiasco as a sign that the U.S. military has gone soft or something?

Aircraft carrier crews in 1944 were fending off kamikaze attacks and washing smashed airplanes and bodies off the flight deck. Many of the planes and pilots they sent aloft didn't return. I know, I know, that was during a time of war. Putting lives at risk during peacetime is a different matter. But isn't it US doctrine that we train for war and operate for war even in times of peace, in order to maintain a credible deterrence? And why is a 10% infection rate (with one death, according to the latest reports I've seen) and the removal of one captain causing such a crisis aboard this ship?

This isn't just any ship; this is the tip of the proverbial spear, the way we project power in the world. If this challenging but manageable situation can idle an aircraft carrier battle group, what happens if we ever face REAL military adversity on the high seas? I saw a report a few days ago that the USS Nimitz also now has COVID19 cases aboard. Are we going to put THAT carrier out of commission as well?

What would the ship's namesake, the Rough Rider Teddy Roosevelt, say?  Remember: This was the TR who put his own butt on the line riding up San Juan Hill. This was the Teddy who took an assassin's bullet and continued his convention speech. An estimated 5,609 souls perished while building the American phase of the Panama Canal, on Teddy's orders. His administration made heroic efforts to lessen the casualty rate -- it wasn't like Teddy threw those workers to the wolves. But he understood that such an undertaking risked lives.

I don't think Roosevelt -- whom Captain Brett Crozier was compared to in one laughably lame piece I read -- would bring his ship back to port due to an infection that 98% (or more?) of the crew would likely survive, despite what one great-grandson says. Crozier (who wasn't technically fired but was reassigned, with no loss of rank) naturally became an instant liberal folk hero, given that the incident came on Trump's watch. Some contrarians questioned the Captain's handling of the case, but most just gushed about what a compassionate and caring leader he was, as if THAT's the only standard by which he could or should be judged.

My dad was one of those "World War II guys." He served on a small ship in the Pacific theater and occasionally reminisced about the experience, which needless to say was life-changing and redefining for a coal miner's kid from Pennsylvania. He's gone now, like most of that generation, and I hate to put words in his mouth. But I'm almost certain -- in fact, I can almost hear what he would be saying  in my head, expletives and all -- that he would judge Crozier harshly and interpret the incident as another sign of national softness, decadence and decline.

All unnecessary suffering and death is to be avoided, in peacetime as well as wartime. Obviously. But contemporary America seems to have lost the capacity for rationally weighing risks, or even to  understand that such trade-offs must sometimes be made -- something that no one questioned the need for in the past, especially in times of war. Our most effective military leaders, although none would count as monsters, were rarely known for their hand-wringing compassion. Think Sherman. Think Grant. Think Patton and MacArthur. Think about that Revolutionary War hard ass, General George Washington. They all cared for their troops, probably very deeply. But they couldn't allow human compassion to so cloud their judgement that the mission would fail. The mission came first. And success almost invariably meant sacrifice. Sacrifice, tragedy and heartache.       

There's nothing low risk about joining the military, even in times of relative peace. Sadly, even training for war brings casualties. My dad had some tense moments during the war but came closest to losing his life not at Okinawa, or Iwo Jima, but on the beach at San Luis Obispo, California, when he came close to drowning in the surf during a training exercise.

Suck it up. Tough it out. Make it work. Be resourceful. Overcome adversity. Get the mission done. Aren't these the things we expect our soldiers and sailors to do when confronting challenging circumstances? If COVID19 can bring our military to a standstill, as well as our economy, this country is in dire, dire straits.

It makes the U.S. look like the proverbial paper tiger. And the real tigers of the world must be taking notice.

Keeping It All in Context

There have been 193 deaths in Colorado attributed to COVID19 as of yesterday afternoon. That's a lot of pain, suffering and heartache for victims and their loved ones. But here are some data points that might help put the scale of this in context.

Each month in Colorado, on average,

652 people die from cancer
590 people die from heart disease
577 people die from influenza/pneumonia
253 people die in accidents of various kinds

I'm not sharing this to diminish COVID19 impacts on those who have become ill or died. But death happens, all the time, and at much greater rates than most of us imagine because we're normally not obsessing about it and keeping a running tally 24/7.

Maybe that should change. Maybe we need to post a scrolling tally of deaths, broken out by causes -- a National Death Clock, similar to the National Debt Clocks we occasionally see -- on massive billboards along our freeways or looming over Times Square, to remind us all that time is short, life is fleeting and fragile, every day matters and no one here gets out alive.

Brighton Case Still Raises Questions, Despite an Apology

Well, I applaud the Brighton (Colorado) Police Department for conceding that this arrest was overkill and for offering an apology. But . . . .

What we're seeing in this case and others suggests to me that you have officers out there, and maybe departments, that will blindly follow orders and enforce "the rules" even if those rules defy common sense and are of dubious legality and Constitutionality. 

I know individual cops can't be expected to study the legality of every stupid law they are asked to enforce. But come on. They are sworn to uphold The Constitution, not to blindly and robotically do the bidding of whomever signs their paychecks, so this is still very alarming to me despite the apology that a backlash brought. 

Will the cops side with the people or the power-drunk "authorities" when push comes to shove? I would like to think most cops (and soldiers, for that matter) would at some point balk at being a party to tyranny and obvious rights-trampling. But 20th Century history tells us a scarier story.

The Short Life and Sudden Death of Faux Federalism

After more than a century in exile, or maybe banishment would be a better word, the founding principle of Federalism came roaring back into fashion in many Democrat-dominated states in the Trump era, with California and Colorado leading the rebellious pack. The transformation came miraculously and instantaneously on the day Donald J. Trump took the oath of office. It seemed like a sea change of sweeping significance.

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the party that spent the last century methodically concentrating power in the grasping claws of central government, the party that long dismissed and denigrated conservative support for "states' rights" as a sinister echo of slave-era thinking, the party of one-one-size-fits-all, as long as that size is XXL, rediscovered "states' rights" and even "local control" as rallying cries.

These newly-neofederalist states weren't going to just take orders from the hated Trump administration. They weren't going to follow federal laws and regulatory diktats with which they disagreed. These states now wanted the autonomy and sovereignty they were due under our federalist system of governance. A strong whiff of secessionism filled the air, especially in California. 

Some went even further down the road toward open rebellion by forming a state-led cartel, with California at the helm, to establish stricter-than-federal vehicle emissions standards. Members of this new "Cali cartel" weren't just seeking autonomy under this unworkable two-tiered regulatory scheme; they were (and still are, since this power struggle is now before the courts) hoping to leverage their clout as car markets to make their standard the de facto national standard, effectively turning the federalist idea on its head.

This wasn't federalism but reverse federalism, in which a subgroup of states attempts to impose its emissions standard on all the other states, in textbook wag-the-dog fashion.   

Some rebel states further tested established boundaries my engaging in foreign policy. They vowed to abide by terms of the never-ratified Paris Climate Accord, for instance, a treaty Trump ran against.  California further upped the ante by negotiating a cross-border cap and trade scheme with Canada. 

Such shows of defiance delighted liberals and turned certain Governors (like California's Gavin Newsom) into instant celebrities. But they also constituted a challenge to federal power and prerogatives without parallel in recent history, prompting the Trump administration to push back. The provocateurs then posed as the "victims" of Trump's aggression and iron rule. It was a simplistic morality play some in the press eagerly played up. 

But then -- BAM! -- COVID19 hit and the zebras began showing their statist stripes again. 

Suddenly, America's most Trump-defiant states are the states bleating loudest for federal help, federal bailouts, federal guidelines, federal "leadership" -- even for federal force against states that won't impose Constitutionally-dubious lockdowns of various sorts. And suddenly, states unwilling to join the stampede to trample civil liberties become rogue "holdout states" that must be brought to heel. Trump now finds himself under fire from the neofederalist left for not imposing a national lockdown; for not ordering states to comply; for granting governors the latitude to tailor responses that meet their circumstances.

We're learning a lot about ourselves and our country, good and bad, during this crisis. It's become a gut check that was probably overdue. We're seeing the world more clearly and soberly as a result. True colors become much more vivid in a midst of tough times. Now we can put to rest any notion that Democrats suddenly have seen light on the merits and virtues of the federalist system of governance. We can see that faux federalism was just another pose they struck for partisan purposes.

They are what they've always been; statists to the marrow. 

U.S. Pickle Permit Police Will be the Death of Us.

Hey, you can't sell that pickle without a permit!!

Petty, turf-conscious, by-the-book bureaucrats are shutting down "illegal" grocery providers in Los Angeles, according to this report in Reason.

"A few Los Angeles restaurants struggling to maintain footing amid the COVID-19 outbreak identified a clever way to generate revenue while still serving the community: Start selling groceries.

The city's public health department promptly shut them down. The reason? The small businesses don't have a "grocery permit."

"It's not really possible for a restaurant to become a grocery store," Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of Los Angeles County Public Health, said in a briefing yesterday. "You cannot just decide you want to sell groceries."

So, what's one big lesson to be learned from this?

Meddlesome government does more harm than good. 

We've become a culture of nay-saying rather than yay-saying by handing unelected apparatchiks overly vast powers that they wield with the rigidity and ruthlessness of a Soviet kommisar. Most of what the government does today is to restrain productivity, creativity, adaptability and innovation, often for anachronistic or invalid reasons. In a crisis, when we need to move quickly, we see that hitting the "stop" button on the government's robotic red tape dispenser is the quickest way to get results. Mountains can still be moved . . . but only when the mountain of accreted rules and regulations at the local, state and federal levels are bulldozed aside and free enterprise has a chance to breath again.   

If America survives this, it will be the private sector, unshackled from government red tape, that saves our bacon. And we can come out of this situation stronger than ever before if we refuse to go back to the somnambulant "normal" and declare a continuous war on unnecessary red tape once the immediate crisis recedes.